STUFF & THINGS 3

By Richard Early

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“Comics Values Monthly – how often does that come out?”

This is actually a slight paraphrase rather than a verbatim quote, but it’s funnier this way.

EVOLUTION, INNOVATION, INFLATION, AND THE ART OF COMIC BOOK MAKING

DC Comics recently released a collection of older Flash comics, issues #136-141 plus a story from some Flash Secret Files. The stories in the book are written by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar – although I’m suspicious that Morrison’s contribution may have concept only, leaving Millar to most of the execution. Reading this volume brought several thoughts to my mind.

The trade collects two stories. The first is about the Flash being forced to compete in a cosmic race to save the Earth. The second is a race against the Black Flash to the end of time. Both concepts share the same grandiose, high concept storytelling found in more recent comics by these two writers. Morrison has recently put the DCU through a Final Crisis where Darksied’s fall creates a singularity that threatens the whole multiverse. Oh, and he killed Batman. Mark Millar’s Ultimates took the Avengers on a blockbuster war against alien invaders in one volume and saw the US taken over by the rest of the world in the next. Obviously, these guys have no fear of taking comics to a new level.

So while that same sort of sweeping, epic story sense was present in the Flash, there were a lot of things missing. One lacking element to the book was the dialogue. This is the thing that makes me think Millar did most of the writing. Don’t get me wrong, this is not an insult to Millar, who I think is quite good., but by the time the Flash issues hit the stands, Morrison had been writing comics for quite a while and Millar was much younger as a writer. There’s a very faltering, issue-by-issue reintroduction. The first page or so of all six comics features a thought box where the Flash says something like: “My name is Wally West and I’m the fastest man alive.” By about the third time I read this, I had a pretty good idea who the Flash was and what he did. Argh. Looking back further in comics history, this is a technique popularized by Chris Claremont in Uncanny X-Men in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Structurally, this sort of device, clearly designed for a monthly readership, is meant as a recap, a way to bring the reader who may not be familiar with the story up to date. It’s most important as a technique when you expect your buyers to pick up monthly books at grocery stores or convenience stores. It’s also a style that has virtually disappeared today – which is probably why Chris Claremont has lost a lot of popularity since he can’t let go….

Today, comics are written as part of a story arc. This is one of the things I was thinking about as I read this trade. Most of the time when you pick up a trade of a comic that’s currently being produced, you don’t even realize that you’re reading individual issues because the story simply flows from one issue to the next to the next. Clearly, what’s happened is that DC and Marvel and their fellows have changed their strategy. They publish the monthly title now almost as material for the trade. They know that they can sell trades for $15-$20 and that the cost equals about six issues of a monthly. So your books become six issues stories. I myself am still quite a fan of the monthly and don’t mind this tactic at all. It’s like watching a TV show every week vs. getting the complete season on DVD. Both have their place, but the shows I really like, I record and watch the week they air. That’s probably the same with the comics I like, too. I tend to read trades of older stuff or of titles that I have a more casual interest in, but when I want the immediacy of events, I read that monthly book.

The other big thing I thought about while reading this trade was the art. Whoof. The art was not great, to be kind. But that’s not really what caught my attention. The big thing about the art was that it was clinging to the traditional layout structure of older comics. Going way back, Golden Age comics would pack the page with small panels with lots of dialogue. It was clearly believed that the reader thought words = entertainment and the art was just there to support the text. Combined with the lack of modern coloring, these issues had a very odd feel.

You see, the problem is that writers like Morrison and Millar were starting to develop a very modern style, but the format wasn’t right. Their stories were evolving but the structure of the book was not. The race story simply doesn’t fit in that book, it’s too big. The reader’s imagination was not challenged by what he was looking at as much as it was by what he was reading. This makes the book feel very odd. Retold, I think these stories today would be marvelous. If Frank Quitely could have given his movie screen pencils to the race story, it would have been gorgeous. The race is across the space time continuum. Imagine a racetrack circling not just physical locations, but different eras. Imagine what a talented artist with modern coloring and the freedom to use large panels could do. The same is true of the Black Flash story. Put Bryan Hitch on this story. Have him do a 10 page pullout (a la Ultiamtes 2 #13) of Wally and the Black Flash racing from the 20^th century to the end of history. The corniness and awkwardness of these stories would be gone, replaced by cutting edge storytelling that merges art and text in ways older comics could only dream of.

I gotta wrap this up. I don’t want anyone to think I’m criticizing past comic eras. If anything, I love older comics more than modern. I’m simply making a point about what’s changed the last ten to twenty years. Image was at the forefront. Who had ever seen a comic like Spawn #1? That was surely the beginning of the modern age.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

If you missed it, we posted a review of the sixteenth anniversary weekend on the front page of the website and posted a ton of pictures on our Facebook page. Sign up to be a fan of the paradox Facebook page if you aren’t already and check it out.

Oh, and we did it, boys and girls! We hit three weeks in a row. I’m not gonna lie, when I sat down to do this I had no idea what to write about this week. I hope that isn’t always the case. It’s a little nerve wracking. I hate pressure. So here’s hoping something smacks me in the face before next Friday. I guess we’ll find out…